The medicine-man, conjurer, enchanter and worker of great magic inseparable from the religious ceremonies of primitive races had already developed into the formal priest when the Romans first appeared upon the stage of history in Italy. At this early period Rome seems to have also possessed her own religious rituals and sacred priestly knowledge. The priests soon became the first depositaries of writing and the organizers of the calendar and the religious tribal and state religious cere monies in general. At this early period in the life of the Roman people, the superior priest hood seem to have been almost inseparably connected with the nobility and the kingly rulers, the latter of whom had already begun to lay claim to descent from the gods. The seeds of ancestor worship had also already been planted, a custom which was later on to deify kings and emperors, as the legal and de facto repre sentatives of the gods upon earth. As early as 304 s.c. the first known religious ceremonial Roman calendar presents a list of 45 days in the year sacred to the gods and subject to prescribed ceremonial. No work was permitted on these days. Following this first ceremonial regulation and the Julian calendars, (46 a.c.) there were some 30 other calendars, all issued with the same end in view, the recording and regulating of religious practices and ceremonies long in vogue. For this reason, though most of these calendars are fragmentary, they are of very great interest and value in the study of the religious and social life of the Roman people. They show plainly the organizing hand of a priesthood growing steadily ever more and more powerful, better organized and more closely connected with the state. According to The calendars, 30 or more gods were signally honored in the provision of special festivals, ceremonies, shrines and priests; and of all these definite and well-defined deities and ceremonies statements are presented which are invaluable for the proper understanding of the religious references so profusely scattered throughout Latin literature.
Evolution of Religious Thought— Rome had about all the various and varying religious experiences sustained by later nations and peoples. In the early stages of her career she had a strong and abiding faith in her gods and in their efficacy. The establishment of the state control of religion was followed by a decrease of interest in religious matters by the more in telligent classes. From the end of the Regal Period to the Second Punic War Rome became gradually more cosmopolitan, assimilating the thought of the other parts of Italy in her almost continuously waged campaigns of war and com merce; and from the dose of this latter period to the end of the republic, while working out her destiny as Imperial Rome, she came into contact with Greece and other highly-civilized nations; and her literature, thought and phi losophy expanded and became truly national, assuming, at the same time, a world-wide out look This brought with it a radical revolution in religious thought leading directly to general scepticism. It looked very much as if the old religion were about to go by the board when the establishment of the empire saved it for the time being. The emperors, claiming to rule by divine right and direct descent from the gods, it was very much to their interest to uphold a state religion; which they did on a magnificent scale, bringing into the national church all the officers, employees and dependents of the gov ernment. The state church, at this latter stage, was an immense fraternity, all the members of which were bound, by virtue of their office, to support it. This revival of the ancient Roman religion was, therefore, less religious than po litical, though the royal family and especially the emperors took the matter serious enough an attitude due to their careful education, which taught them_ to believe in their own divine birth and destiny. But on the whole this revival of the old faith was effected under conditions which could produce only a general scepticism; and this became the prevailing tone of the re ligious thought of the empire, which showed itself in the wide attention given to the most recondite philosophies, mysticisms and foreign cults of all kinds. Babylonian, Greek, Assyrian,
Egyptian and Eastern religious ideas found welcome in Rome. The Great Earth Mother of Asia Minor and Isis, the mother goddess of Egypt, were not only introduced into Rome but their worship, which was accompanied with elaborate ritual and ceremonial, became almost universal throughout the Roman Empire; and such a firm root did it take among the masses of the Roman people and the Eastern nations under the domination of Rome that the early Christian missionaries found great difficulty in eradicating it.
One of the strongest of the Greek influences was exercised through the Sibylline Books, which introduced Greek gods, rituals, organiza tions, ceremonies and practices into Rome. Connected with these books was a very famous oracle who boldly recommended the introduc tion into of foreign gods, especially those of Greek origin. As this cult became fashion able with the educated class, it spread rapidly throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. Greek gods were set up by the side of Roman, the new by the old; and the splendor and pomp of the ceremonies connected with the worship of both increased. Greek art and the wholesale manufacture of artistic statues of the deities followed. One of the recommendations of great moment of the Sibylline Books was that of the introduction of the Magna Mater (the Great Mother), which helped to largely strengthen the worship of the arth Mother, already men tioned. This was followed, on the same recom mendation, by the introduction of the Earth Mother, Ma, of Phrygia. All these had very emotional rites and attractive ceremonies sim ilar, in many respects, to those accorded Isis of Egypt. Hence they appealed strongly to a people already tired of the dead formality of the old state religion which had become so ritualized and fossilized that it had lost all its former vitality and attractiveness. This craze for for eign deities went to unheard-of extremes, going so far afield as Persia, from which was intro duced the great sun god, Mithras, with his elab orate mystical worship, which became very popular in the Imperial City itself. From thence it spread over all the Roman Empire, where Mithras was worshipped as the source of all life and the redeemer of souls. His mystical rites, which were held in dark caves or gloomy buildings under ground, were attractive owing to their contrast to the gorgeous ceremonies of the state religion, in which it was said that no one stil believed except the emperor and the poets; a hyperbole which conveyed the thought that it had become an integral part of the government machinery and of the imagery and machinery of Latin literature, which was overlarded with allusions to the state deities and given to fulsome praise of them, be cause this was pleasing to the state authorities. Thus Rome, bathed in philosophy, scepticism, mysticism, emotionalism and stoicism, with noth ing solid to which to anchor, drifted upon the rocks of national religious shipwreck. In this condition she was found by the young and vigorous Christianity, which, throwing her weight strongly in the balance, won the day for the development of the Catholic faith.
Aust, 'Die Religion der Rimer' Paris 1889) ' • Boissier, 'La religion romaine d Auguste auxAntoines' (2 vols., Paris 1874) ; Carter, J. B., 'The Religion of Numa> (London 1905) ; 'The Religious Life of Ancient Rome> (Boston 1911) ; Cornyn, J. H. modo de pensar del hombre prinuuvo> (Mexico City 1912) ; 'Corpus Inscnptionum Latinarum' ; Cumont, 'The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism' (Chicago 1911) ; Fowler, F. W., 'The Roman Festivals' (London 1911) • Glover, T. R., 'The Conflicts of Religions in the Early Roman Empire> (London 1909) ; Marchi, 'U culto privato di Roma Antica' ; Marquardt; (Romische Staatsverwaltung> ; Mominsen,'His tory of
Feller,